All good pals together...

Hugely impressed with the launch of Better Together and all the amazing reasons why we're half baked tremulous loons, if we dare to step out the door on the path to a deeply uncertain destination.

The official launch photo is fantastic, look closely at their happy little faces. Only Davidson has cottoned on to the fact that smiling in a photo exudes confidence, the rest look miserable, almost as if they're about to wander off in the direction of an, ahem, deeply uncertain destination.

As their theme tune is bizarrely a rip off of the Yes campaign, I decided to delve deep into You Tube and give them a tune that resonates with their aims and inspirations, and by the look on their faces yesterday, they're needing it.

 

   

What I say is this...more cheese?

Ed Miliband finally concedes that England will be worse off economically when Scotland becomes Independent. 

you can't fool others if you're fooling yourself

A saunter through the internet yesterday brought me to a story about the US artist Jenny Holzer and her latest gallery shows in London and Berlin. Holzer has built a substantial career out of using narrative in her images.

Intrigued by the original article off I went in search of other examples of her work. Eventually I arrived at a website containing her earlier work from the late 1970's at the height of punk.  'Truisms' appeared in the form of anonymous broadsheets that were printed anonymously in black italic script on white paper and wheat-pasted on to buildings, walls and fences in Manhattan. Truisms contains a collection of one liners that succinctly reduces far larger concepts and creates differing interpretations.

The above phrase on the Union Jack, 'Absolute Submission Can Be A Form of Freedom' is one of Holzer's. It reminded me of Professor Ted Cowan's comment about wondering when Scottish Unionists gave up on Scotland. Could it be that they've opted for an abeyance on their Scottish responsibilities whilst making the transition from big fish in a small pond to ambitious small fish in a bigger pond? What I mean by this, in a no doubt clunky and difficult to relay fashion, is that in an effort to work within the 'stronger together-weaker-apart' ethos that works in social movements but not to the betterment of governments, they've absolved themselves of duty to their neighbours and shared heritage by the lure of false promises of Unionism. Have they discovered a freedom in submitting completely to the ideals of post colonial Empire and the new neo liberal globalism that the other big boy countries are disastrously embracing? 

I stuck the text up on the Union Jack as a provocation to those soft unionists, who are not sure of the next step in the path to normality and to see if they can argue against my contention that adherence to Unionism is a submission to the Westminster establishment and a negation of free thinking and communal ambition for their own folk...

I reckon the following dozen one liners resonate aspects of both the Scottish Independence and the British nationalists mindset:

abuse of power comes as no surprise

calm is more conductive to creativity than is anxiety

dependence can be a meal ticket

government is a burden on the people

labour is a life-destroying activity

low expectations are good protection

occasionally principles are more valuable than people

politics is used for personal gain

revolution begins with changes in the individual

separatism is the way to a new beginning

taking a strong stand publicizes the opposite position

you can't fool others if you're fooling yourself


I may use them on other images. It's what Jenny Holzer would want.

Thar be picaroons ahead.

  (c) Dan Haskett

Whilst scouring the internets this am looking for something both sensible to read and waste time as the rest of the house arose from their slumbers I happened upon the letter below in the Belfast Newsletter.

Hugely impressed with the rational observations and radical ideas therein, I decided to tweet the link. Happy in the knowledge that a few like minded souls were similarly impressed and chose to send it furth to their contacts, I now think the contents of this letter deserves a wider audience. Have a read at it, if you agree with the sentiments expressed, then spread it far and wide.

Mr Bernard J Mulholland, Sir, my bunnet is tipped in your general direction, for the best letter on the Independence debate I've read in ages and for resurrecting the splendid 'Picaroons'. Thank you. 

Independence won’t lead to UK break-up

Published on Friday 1 June 2012 09:48
 

I FOUND Saturday’s editorial (News Letter, May 26) to be misleading.

The editorial argues that if the campaign for Scottish independence is successful this will lead to the ‘irrevocable break-up of the United Kingdom’.

It will do no such thing.

The SNP have said they will retain the monarch as head of state, but the Scots wish to take their own decisions in Edinburgh free from interference by Westminster.

In simple terms – the ‘union’ remains intact but the picaroons at Westminster and in Whitehall will be shown the door.

Similarly, the editorial asks whether Scotland will have its own currency, and yet the SNP have made it abundantly clear that they will indeed retain their ‘own currency,’ i.e. sterling.

As yet there has been little in the way of discussion as to how this arrangement will work in practice, but it is likely that this will formally create a ‘sterling zone’ operating parallel with the eurozone, and so the European Union will have two international currency unions operating within its borders.

This opens up an interesting possibility with regard to some of those economies currently struggling within the eurozone.

If the UK government chose to it could bring forward Scottish independence, apply the same status to Wales and Northern Ireland, and in so doing formalise the creation of a federated sterling zone within the EU, which could operate in parallel with - and complement - the euro.

In doing so it could introduce an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ fiscal and monetary union as practised by our cousins in the USA.

One attraction in doing this is that, rather than being forced to go it alone, Greece (and indeed any other member of the EU) could be invited to join this Sterling zone, but at a rate that better suits its prevailing economic situation.

The 11 million-strong population of Greece is barely twice that of Scotland and, if handled sympathetically, their adoption of sterling – which is already an international currency – could be relatively smooth.

The US dollar is the national currency of at least one country outside of the USA, and so this scenario is not untested.

Furthermore, the institutions of a federated sterling zone could be dispersed among its members as a means of creating high value jobs and distributing wealth.

One last observation is that ‘the SNP was seen by many working-class Catholics as a Protestant party, even as an Orange organisation’ (‘Scotland’s Irish question’, New Statesman, March 5, 2012, page 34).

The News Letter’s readers might benefit from a few in-depth interviews with the SNP and the Scottish independence campaign rather than peddling Westminster’s ill-informed tittle-tattle.

Bernard J Mulholland

Belfast

'Gigantic' referendum coverage...

Isn't it odd that people doubt BBC Scotland's renowned impartiality? A quick scan of BBC Scotland's news website this morning produced the following page. Knowing that the Scottish Parliament had voted to endorse the principle of Independence, I was rather confuddled that such a major story on an 'historic motion' was consigned to 12th place in the pecking order.
 

Surely this minor position, deemed of less interest than a community order dodging ned, is in stark contrast to BBC's director general Mark Thompson's avowed claim that BBC coverage of the Independence Referendum will be 'gigantic'. Mr Thompson told MSP's a mere 36 hours ago that the BBC coverage of the Independence debate is, "one of the biggest things the BBC will ever do anywhere – it's a story of immense interest and importance." Just not as important as stories about Rangers, the Olympics, the Jubilee and the aforementioned TV loving ned.